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I guess I'm just super paranoid still. I read that if they get cold they can get sick and die really easily and I wanted to make sure she didn't.
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May 27, 2014 17:48
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Sociopastry posted:I guess I'm just super paranoid still. I read that if they get cold they can get sick and die really easily and I wanted to make sure she didn't. Nope, or at least, not from a bath in a cool apartment. Most of these little birds are pretty hardy in terms of the temperatures they can tolerate. Obviously making sure they aren't wet in cold/freezing temps is a good idea, but you don't have to worry too much about it, and some of them love being wet and shaking themselves off. 
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May 27, 2014 17:55
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Ohtori used to live outside in below 0C temperatures, and the breeder said that all the conures still went crazy for baths in those temperatures. Obviously they were used to it over a long time, but they're not quite as fragile as they seem-Ohtori still refuses a sink bath if it's any temperature above cold (but loves standing under a warm shower). Just make sure they're not placed in the way of a breeze or something!
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May 27, 2014 18:27
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Good to know. I'm really happy my little Tokyo won't die just because of a shower. Also, what's the best way to discipline her if she does something bad? I know most people here just plop their birds on the floor, but she doesn't really seem to mind that very much and the moment she's off the floor she goes right back into doing whatever it was I didn't want her doing. Is there a better way to discipline her? I want to make sure she knows that chewing on wires is a no no so she doesn't hurt herself.
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May 27, 2014 18:51
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Well, just gotta figure out what she doesn't like. Alexis, for example, HATES being put back in her cage. So if she does something bad or nasty (like nipping my neck, which, thankfully, she's stopped doing) I'll just put her in her cage and close the door. It's worked pretty well so far. Of course, for some birds, they really want to be in their cage and you don't want to accidentally teach your bird that "biting = go back to cage happy times!" Maybe find something your bird finds scary and put it on top of the wires she tries to chew on. I think it's Pookah whose African Gray is terrified of "the evil hairbrush"? Even the threat of The Evil Hairbrush making an appearance is apparently enough now for Pookie to stop doing what's she's doing. EDIT: Just like a small child, a bird isn't going to understand anger or threats from you--whenever possible, using positive reinforcement, diversion-punishment (floor or cage time are examples of this), or "scary objects" (that the bird doesn't associate with you specifically) are going to be the effective ways to get some behavioral modification. Kenshin fucked around with this message at 19:13 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 19:09
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Hmmm. Well, Tokyo does really loving hate this one red drinking glass I have. She was chilling out on my desk one day and managed to knock the empty cup onto herself and she's been pissed at it ever since. Pretty funny, actually, because she'll scream bloody murder if I use it for tea. I'm just worried she'll come to associate Devil Glass From Hell with me if I use it for punishment.
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May 27, 2014 19:20
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Sociopastry posted:Hmmm. Well, Tokyo does really loving hate this one red drinking glass I have. She was chilling out on my desk one day and managed to knock the empty cup onto herself and she's been pissed at it ever since. Pretty funny, actually, because she'll scream bloody murder if I use it for tea. I'm just worried she'll come to associate Devil Glass From Hell with me if I use it for punishment. Well, don't use it for punishment. Just put it places she shouldn't be going (like on the cables) without her seeing you place it there.
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May 27, 2014 19:24
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I use a ~magic curtain~ to keep my budgies at bay. It doesn't even have to hang anywhere - just a piece of it is enough to repel the two, guaranteed. They literally take up safe observation places to keep an eye on that wicked piece of cloth. Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that one of them got tangled with a claw on a loose thread once. So far, it's successfully kept them from eating valuable cables, flying into temporarily forbidden parts of the house, or mess up my work on the table... But I can't hang it everywhere. Cables + work protected? There goes part of the wallpaper.
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May 27, 2014 20:12
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I'd just buy a small set of those red mugs and place them around like anti-bird pylons.
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May 27, 2014 21:32
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With Pearl, I think we turned the corner a few years ago from Things I Hate = Run Away to Things I Hate= Attack. It was totally my fault, too. I kept encouraging her to go after this hamster robot thing that would run in random directions on the ground, and she eventually figured out that if she knocked it over, it would stop moving. The highlight of all this is that I shook her jingly ball (also Hated) at her when she was on my shoulder, and she launched herself at the ball, grabbed it while it was in my hand (causing me to let go), then she flung it away and flew to the floor. Oh, and I think I mentioned before she gets into our kitchen cabinets? I was solving that by putting a plastic step stool in front of the cabinet doors. Nope, not good enough. She apparently has been supporting herself on each side of the door, wedging her beak into one of the doors, using leverage to push the stool away, and then sliding inside. A quarter of the inside floor of the cabinet has been chewed-- luckily we were going to replace it anyway.
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May 28, 2014 01:37
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Last night Max scraped up against his cage's door latch as I was closing the door and boy howdy I didn't know how close to heart attack I could get with bird blood on my hands. Cue lots of toweling, flour compacts, and crying (me), and cotton swabbing. The emergency vet said on the phone that if he was eating and drinking as normal, then it could probably wait until morning. Didn't sleep very much last night as I kept checking on him. Took him to the bird vet today and she patched him up with skin-glue and vitamin K. Any advice on how to keep a bird from chewing on his wounds? The vet didn't think a cone was necessary. I've got him centered on my laptop right now so I can keep a constant eye on him because he keeps trying to go for it. Also anyone have advice on how to get liquid antibiotics into a bird's mouth with a syringe with as less trauma (towel-burritos are universally hated here) as possible?
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May 28, 2014 03:20
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Kenshin posted:Well, just gotta figure out what she doesn't like. Close, it's "The Scary Brush" It's this but with a scarlet handle:  And yeah, she knows the name now so if we want to mention it without freaking her out you have to call it "the SB". She's 14 now and is pretty much as freaked out by it now as she was when she was a babby. It's funny in an awful way how she gets all thin and watchful if you tell her you're going to get The Scary Brush if she doesn't stop breaking whatever she is currently breaking, and then if you reach out towards it she scurries away to a safe distance and makes apologetic squeaks until the danger is past.  It's funny, you get so used to your bird and how they behave that I think sometimes you don't notice when they are quietly doing something pretty impressive; Pookie is not a great talker but she understands a lot of words and phrases; like for example I sometimes give her some toasted linseeds to nibble on in the evening, and when I do I ask her if she wants some linseed crunch. She always and immediately knows what I'm talking about and I have tried varying my intonation and pacing to see if it is just that that she is responding to and it makes no difference, she knows the words immediately. Pookah fucked around with this message at 19:02 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 18:57
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Pookah posted:It's funny, you get so used to your bird and how they behave that I think sometimes you don't notice when they are quietly doing something pretty impressive. A couple weeks ago I was in the kitchen making dinner with Amadeus on my shoulder. I turned on the faucet and he immediately slimmed down and pointed his body towards the sink, making his "bath time please!" sounds. I've never given him water from the kitchen sink, not to drink, not to bathe in, nothing. I can't tell if it is really impressive that he knew the kitchen sink could provide bath water just like the washroom sink does, or if I'm just being a bird crazy. And yes, I gave him his bath.
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May 28, 2014 21:31
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:A couple weeks ago I was in the kitchen making dinner with Amadeus on my shoulder. I turned on the faucet and he immediately slimmed down and pointed his body towards the sink, making his "bath time please!" sounds. I've never given him water from the kitchen sink, not to drink, not to bathe in, nothing. I can't tell if it is really impressive that he knew the kitchen sink could provide bath water just like the washroom sink does, or if I'm just being a bird crazy. Birdies R smart
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May 28, 2014 23:41
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For best result with the syringe re: antibiotics. Just get good at it, that's all you can do. Or if you can put juice in a spoon and mix in the baytril or whatever it is.
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May 29, 2014 00:22
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SaNChEzZ posted:For best result with the syringe re: antibiotics. Just get good at it, that's all you can do. Or if you can put juice in a spoon and mix in the baytril or whatever it is. Yeah, that's what we're doing. I put an extra one in my mouth to show him that it's not the devil, and that kind of helped. Trouble is I have to do it twice, once for the Ibuprofen and again for the penicillin. He's all poofed up now and quiet.
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May 29, 2014 03:57
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artichoke posted:Yeah, that's what we're doing. I put an extra one in my mouth to show him that it's not the devil, and that kind of helped. Trouble is I have to do it twice, once for the Ibuprofen and again for the penicillin. He's all poofed up now and quiet. I'd at least add some juice of some kind to the mixture as it makes it more tolerable and perhaps even enjoyable for the little guy. We had to give Ritz baytril for 2 weeks twice a day and it was miserable. Since then we've spoon trained him using coconut water, now as soon as the spoon comes out, it doesn't matter what's in it, he goes nuts. Hopefully we don't have to medicate him again, but if we do the spoon should be a good delivery vessel. Frozen Pizza Party fucked around with this message at 04:58 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 04:55
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If only birds were easy to deal with like dogs and you could just wrap the pill in ham or force open their maw and shove it down. Neither approach works with parrots  If your bird likes oatmeal, you can mix it in there too. You do need to cut the syringe open a bit wider, though.
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May 29, 2014 05:23
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SaNChEzZ posted:I'd at least add some juice of some kind to the mixture as it makes it more tolerable and perhaps even enjoyable for the little guy. Eejit posted:If only birds were easy to deal with like dogs and you could just wrap the pill in ham or force open their maw and shove it down. Neither approach works with parrots Thanks for the help, guys. I think I'll soak a banana slice with it since he can never resist them. bonus sleepy-at-work pic: 
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May 29, 2014 05:35
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artichoke posted:Last night Max scraped up against his cage's door latch as I was closing the door and boy howdy I didn't know how close to heart attack I could get with bird blood on my hands. Cue lots of toweling, flour compacts, and crying (me), and cotton swabbing. The emergency vet said on the phone that if he was eating and drinking as normal, then it could probably wait until morning. Didn't sleep very much last night as I kept checking on him. Took him to the bird vet today and she patched him up with skin-glue and vitamin K. When JJ kept tearing open her foot I finally resorted to "aversion therapy". She hates the laser pointer, so for a full day I sat there staring at her in her cage, every time she'd go to bite it, I'd flash the laser at the wall near her cage. I have no idea if this is what actually caused her to finally stop, but she didn't do it anymore after that. Edit: this is not something that I would recommend unless he's actively chewing on his foot and damaging himself and nothing else works. I only did this after trying everything else and she still ripped off all the skin on her foot and chewed all her nails off of it over night (with the vet saying "don't worry she's fine"). So yeah, scary light would not be my go-to tactic. Karma Comedian fucked around with this message at 07:06 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 06:59
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After having Max for about 6 months mom decided to get her a buddy. So last week we picked up Sam, shes a few months younger and is still learning to climb / use her feet to hold food. Guess they're sisters since we got them from same breeder.  They are getting along fine besides the awkward preening which ends up with them trying to climb on each others heads.
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May 29, 2014 21:32
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I was sorting through some photos on my computer and found the oldest picture I have of Hannah, from 2006. He would have been roughly ten years old. Compare that to one I took last night. I guess it does look like he's aged a bit. It seems his feathers have become a bit darker and I swear he's got what I can best describe as birdie wrinkles on his face. My mom has some old pictures of him as a baby I'd like to have. They're regular photos so I'd have to scan them in. 
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May 30, 2014 00:36
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My cockatiels are really only aggressive after a trauma (vet visit, cut clean, etc) or when I approach their nesting areas (lately it's been one of the compartments on my bookshelf), but today my male tiel flew at me as I was sitting at my desk eating one of those mini-baybel cheeses with the red wax covering and knocked it clear out of my hand, screaming.
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May 30, 2014 14:18
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Apparantly Tokyo has a thing for homemade bread. She won't do it with store bought bread, but when I bake bread she'll snatch it right out of my hand if she's not confined to her cage. If she is confined to her cage, she'll act abused and whine until there is no bread for her to steal.
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May 30, 2014 16:42
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I'm out of country at the moment so I'm vicariously living through this thread. Daemon loves apples. But only the juice. He will shred a whole slice by mashing up a huge chunk until it's dry and then toss the pulp. GCC logic.
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May 30, 2014 16:58
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Sociopastry posted:Apparantly Tokyo has a thing for homemade bread. She won't do it with store bought bread, but when I bake bread she'll snatch it right out of my hand if she's not confined to her cage. If she is confined to her cage, she'll act abused and whine until there is no bread for her to steal. 
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May 30, 2014 17:04
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Wozbo posted:I'm out of country at the moment so I'm vicariously living through this thread. Daemon loves apples. But only the juice. He will shred a whole slice by mashing up a huge chunk until it's dry and then toss the pulp. GCC logic. Goldy does this. I don't think he eats much if any of the fruit but holy god does he make conure apple sauce. He also hates sticky, so after he's done with his apple or any other sticky fruit he needs his beak wiped off. Even if he's in a bitchy bitey mood he'll chill out until his beak is properly clean again. His new game is to click his food dish in its holder. At first it seemed to be he was trying to yank it out but now it looks like he just likes to make it go clicky clicky Birds.
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May 30, 2014 17:35
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Tokyo has a new favorite thing. I found a large rock outside that was out in the garden and put it in Toke's cage and she's been cuddled up to it for the last half hour. It was still warm from the sun andI have a feeling she'll whine at me once it cools off to warm it up again. The house isn't even cold, bird, wtf.
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May 30, 2014 18:04
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WorldWarWonderful posted:My cockatiels are really only aggressive after a trauma (vet visit, cut clean, etc) or when I approach their nesting areas (lately it's been one of the compartments on my bookshelf), but today my male tiel flew at me as I was sitting at my desk eating one of those mini-baybel cheeses with the red wax covering and knocked it clear out of my hand, screaming. I had a male tiel who was crazy sensitive to certain colors and patterns. Most were fine but there was this one patterned blue shirt which, when I walked into the room, caused him to bolt around like he was having a night fright. Do you eat the red-wax covered cheeses often or was it something new?
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May 30, 2014 18:46
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Wozbo posted:I'm out of country at the moment so I'm vicariously living through this thread. Daemon loves apples. But only the juice. He will shred a whole slice by mashing up a huge chunk until it's dry and then toss the pulp. GCC logic. Boop does this with apple too. I'd love to give her apple juice, cause she'd probably love it, but the smell lingering in the air would just set off a migraine. Sorry Boop, it's one of those things you're going to miss out knowing how awesome it is 
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May 30, 2014 20:34
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Carfax Report posted:I had a male tiel who was crazy sensitive to certain colors and patterns. Most were fine but there was this one patterned blue shirt which, when I walked into the room, caused him to bolt around like he was having a night fright. It's new. They have red toys and haven't really freaked out on anything else that's red (fruits and vegetables, bottlecaps from Coke bottles, my USB key, my pocketknife, etc), and even now it's strictly the cheese with the wax on. I've held up other red things out of curiosity but the minute that morsel gets held up he just takes of and rams right into it, then spends the next minute trying to get the taste of wax out of his mouth. They've never really freaked out about anything like that before. They'll get on guard about weird things (like a hand with nail polish or a new toy) but never flown off their perch to attack something several feet away. I'm not concerned about it, it's just that I've had them for eight years and I've never seen that behaviour with anything I've brought within their range. Wozbo posted:I'm out of country at the moment so I'm vicariously living through this thread. Daemon loves apples. But only the juice. He will shred a whole slice by mashing up a huge chunk until it's dry and then toss the pulp. GCC logic. Mine do something similar with strawberries; they won't eat the actual fruit but will rub their beaks all over it, leaving their face a red-stained mess. WorldWarWonderful fucked around with this message at 21:12 on May 30, 2014 |
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May 30, 2014 21:10
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It's about to pour and rain makes Fry think it's time for a bath, so I guess it's off to the showers with us. If I don't bathe him when it rains he flips out and becomes a bitey jerk
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May 30, 2014 22:08
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I need help! I spotted a moving piece of garbage outside of my busy work tonight and upon closer inspection it was a little bird who fell out of it's nest (which I couldn't find). It's eyes are open and it can move around a little bit - but it can't fly yet. I couldn't just leave it there on the cold pavement, so I took it home and it's in a little nest I made from a box, warm and safe. At least tonight if it dies it won't be because it got squashed by someone's shoe. I don't know what I should do now. Google says I should try to feed it room temperature soft dog food. What do you guys think I should do?? Should I call a wildlife rehabilitation center tomorrow? Will they even accept it? I live in Ontario. edit - I'm pretty sure it's a robin. It looks a bit smaller than this rear end in a top hat: 
computer angel fucked around with this message at 05:29 on May 31, 2014 |
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May 31, 2014 05:26
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Don't feed it or give it water, chances are momma bird knows where it is/was and is looking for it. Try to find some bushes near where you found it and I'd place it back there. That'd really he the best thing you can do for it. It looks a bit small to be a fledgeling but I don't know robins.
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May 31, 2014 06:51
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SaNChEzZ posted:Don't feed it or give it water, chances are momma bird knows where it is/was and is looking for it. Try to find some bushes near where you found it and I'd place it back there. That'd really he the best thing you can do for it. I guess it was pretty naive of me to take it in. But it was the middle of the night and I waited for like a half an hour to see if the mother was around. Plus it was in the middle of downtown, which means no bushes or even planters to toss it in. I really have no desire to raise a bird - it's just the thought of it getting smushed by a drunk person (very likely) was difficult to accept. I suppose I should have let mother nature take it's course.
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May 31, 2014 16:59
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Sociopastry posted:Apparantly Tokyo has a thing for homemade bread. She won't do it with store bought bread, but when I bake bread she'll snatch it right out of my hand if she's not confined to her cage. If she is confined to her cage, she'll act abused and whine until there is no bread for her to steal. I have a similar problem. My bird is also easily abused by not sharing when kneading dough (or mixing cookies...) But sometimes, just sometimes, I let her score big-time:  (The mess under the bread is tzatziki)
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May 31, 2014 20:04
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Put Teeka in a laundry basket because it was there and so was he. He seemed to enjoy it.  He did not enjoy when we put a hand towel in there, which concluded our experiment in a cloud of dusty down feathers.
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Jun 1, 2014 06:23
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I just broke a thermometer in the bird/computer room. I'm assuming it's mercury, and birds are in another room (though Ohtori and Steve's cages are still in there) while its ventilating. However, neither of us could actually find any spilt mercury-I smashed it on the desk while shaking it (looked for a second at Inko and BAM, hurr) so it should be there or about, but nothing. Used a torch, no carpets to absorb it etc, and nothing. So we may have gotten lucky-the thermometer looked mostly intact inside as well, just the end bits broken off. Advice? If nothing was found then should just ventilating the place out be okay? We wiped up with dry, then wet, paper towels over the desk and disposed of those with the broken thermometer.
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Jun 1, 2014 19:25
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Are you sure it was a mercury thermometer? It would look like liquid metal. If it was red then it was just alcohol and probably evaporated. If it looks silver, but you bought it within the past few years, it was probably not mercury but rather a galinstan thermometer. In any case, thermometers have a tiny amount of the working fluid in them. Elemental mercury is heavy and has a real resistance to "wetting" a surface, so it tends to roll away. Small beads of it look like ball bearings rolling around. If there's any slope at all it will have rolled that way, but what probably happened is it "shattered" into a ton of small droplets and went everywhere. Thankfully, elemental mercury isn't really that toxic. People used to drink gallons of the stuff before eventually dying, so after a good airing-out and a good mopping you should be fine (and that is mostly for peace of mind). What kills people is methylated mercury, which requires something to chemically bond mercury to other compounds so that cells can interact with it. The metal itself isn't really bioreactive. As long as you don't heat it and make a bunch of mercury vapor it won't do much. So, to summarize:
So from what I can tell, you're probably fine E: From the way you describe it, it may not have even leaked the mercury. Capillary action and atmospheric pressure would have kept most of it in the tube if you'd only broken off the one end.
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Jun 1, 2014 19:46
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"It almost certainly wasn't bought this century" so it seems like it was a mercury thermometer. Only the very end of the inside glass tube that held the liquid was broken, along with the outside end, but it was disposed of before I could check again. I've checked all over the room with a torch and nothing is showing up-the only other place it could have gone would be Inko's cage which is on the floor near the desk, but I don't think so... Just to be annoying, all the humans of the household have been sick this week, so behind on cleaning apartment and bird cages-making searching worse than it would normally be... It's a small room and the windows are wide open-should it be okay to put the birds back for the night then? The windows can stay wide open since it's warm here. Would the cages be okay themselves? E: okay, mopped floor and desk, and cleaned Inko's cage. E2: It's night time, so birds are back in their cages in the cleaned room and covered up, window still wide open. Battle Pigeon fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jun 1, 2014 |
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Jun 1, 2014 20:01
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